The present invention relates to a document-editing system for preparing and editing documents of a specific format.
Most business documents and technical documents are written or printed on format sheets. Using the format sheets, the people preparing the documents are less likely to forget to include all the necessary items of data. Computer program specifications are usually written on the format sheets shown in FIG. 1.
When the writer uses a word processor to write, edit, and print a specification on the format sheets of FIG. 1, however, he or she ma encounter the following problems:
(1) Characters and lines must b arranged on the display screen of the word processor, in such positions that they can be printed within the respective fields of the format. It takes the user a longer time to do this than to print the data on blank sheets. PA1 (2) The data that can be written within each field is limited. To write more data, the writer must add the words "Continued on the attached sheet" in the field and print the overflowing part of the data on another format sheet. (This will cause the reader trouble, too, since he or she must then refer to the attached sheet while reading the format sheet.) PA1 format-data storage means for storing one or more format data records of a tree structure consisting of nodes defining the format of a document, the respective nodes being comprised of any one of: a title field corresponding to the title of a format, a basic field corresponding to a leaf node of the tree structure and corresponding to a fill-in block, and a group field corresponding to an internal node and representing one or more fields being treated as a single field; PA1 document-preparation request means for requesting the preparation of a document in the desired document format; PA1 first document-preparation means for preparing initial document data of the tree structure of the format data, in accordance with the corresponding format data within said format data-storage means, in response to a request from said document-preparation request means; and PA1 second document-preparation means for calculating the number of lines of a group field and the number of characters per line from the tree structure subordinate to the nodes corresponding to the group field, said group field including a field which must be expanded or contracted in the vertical or the horizontal direction, or both, in order to renew the initial document data in accordance with externally input data, to form new desired document data.
Document-editing systems, each designed to print data in a particular format, are known. Each system uses program-controlling codes containing document format data. To change the format, a new program must be prepared as often as is necessary.